


A Song for a Siren

by Vulpesmellifera



Series: The Songs of Solomon [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brief homophobia in chapter 2, Captain Gregory Lestrade, Cthulhu references, Don't copy to another site, Happy Ending, M/M, Madness, MystradeIsMagic, POV Multiple, Sea Creature Mycroft, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24100480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpesmellifera/pseuds/Vulpesmellifera
Summary: Perhaps most fearsome among beasts is a monster with a sweet voice and an appetite that compels it to gorge on the marrow of men. It hid among the waves and in the crevices of the craggy rocks, its stringy hair slick along a back as pale as a fish's belly, its ocean-hued eyes forever fixed on the ship that carried the gallant Captain Lestrade.In a world of madness and monsters, many a man meets his fate at the pointed teeth of an otherworldly creature.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Series: The Songs of Solomon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429711
Comments: 94
Kudos: 126
Collections: Mystrade Is Magic





	1. man has no harbour

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by two songs: "Song for a Siren" by The Jane Austen Argument, and "Song to the Siren," by This Mortal Coil. 
> 
> You can find both songs [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/768ExQXNTs9TB6dbuekvaR?si=WQuuiHYvRF-jhAmPLljgdA) on Spotify.
> 
> A thousand thank yous to hippocrates460, who beta-d this work. 
> 
> I'm posting on Mondays, as it's the Moon-Day, and what a perfect day of the week to post something so shaped by song and by the sea.

> And sometimes it sailed by the wind  
>  Sometimes it sailed by the stars  
>  Sometimes it sailed by the captain's map  
>  But it always sailed her into his arms  
>    
>  But the birds sang over the sails  
>  Yes the birds sang over the sails  
>  And the birds sang over the sails  
>  And the wind cried mutiny  
>    
>  There is a ship  
>  That sails in green waters  
>  And it steers by a light of gold  
>  And far below, the mermen are singing  
>  To the sailors who come and go  
>    
>  And sometimes it sails by the wind  
>  Sometimes it sails by the stars  
>  Sometimes it sails by the captain's map  
>  But it will never sail me into your arms  
>  Again, again, again
> 
> \- _A Song for a Siren,_ The Jane Austen Argument

_ To The Editors of The Hound: _

_ I swear upon the Book of the Dead that everything written in the below account is true and accurately reflects the last days of a well-favoured man and devoted husband. _

  
  


_ Dear Reader, _

_ I share not this tale with you lightly, for still I wear the cheerless colours of mourning. Upon each sunrise, I am met with a sharp strike to the ribs, thieved of breath as I am reminded that I am one of many who must bear the brand of “widow.” Nevermind that the walk is trod by the feet of many who have gone before - it is a lonely path nonetheless.  _

_ In this letter, I shall relate the tale of a man none knew better than I - the valiant Captain Gregory Abraham Lestrade who, while in heroic pursuit of Her Majesty’s best interests, met his cruel demise at sea. _

_ As is the case for many young ladies, Love’s sweet arrow struck when I first laid eyes upon him. He was dashing in his tunic the colour of the deep sea and his very fine hat of beaver pelt with its weeping plume. He was so kind to me, ever the gentleman. Our courtship was brief, as the Old Ones themselves blessed us to know immediately that we suited one another. We’d spent several afternoons in the sun, laughing long, as my Gregory was full of good humour, and he so liked to hear my laugh. While his offer of marriage was not unexpected, it was the happiest day of my life. What other happiness can compare to a woman’s delight in finding her beloved has made an offer? For I fell in love with him fast and early - who could compare to him, amongst the most handsome of men with eyes like the finest chocolate and the face of a demi-god? A smile as bright as the sun and every bit as energizing, my Gregory had.  _

_ It clove my tender heart in two every time my beloved husband left for sea. Half my heart was afloat with him; his return made it whole once again. And he came home to me again and again. No matter how long he left, when we reunited it was like he’d never gone. Two fortunate people so in love, so fine a match. The touch of his hand to mine, the joy in his eyes when he sighted me, the feeling of being carried by wings as he swept me into his arms and carried me to our sacred bedchamber. You may think me salacious to pen something so private, but you must pardon my candour for these are among the things I count in my lonely grief. Every time he went out to journey again, I begged him not to go. But it may be accurate to say that the only true rival of my husband’s heart was indeed the sea, as tempestuous and fickle a mistress it may be.  _

_ It troubles me, however, to admit this one thing to you, my Dear Reader. I knew he should perish. In this world we abide, there are shadows and crevices amongst the earth where monsters await the errant traveler. Brave my husband was, but it was exactly one of these wretches he pursued. I shall explain further: _

_ This time as he prepared for his journey, I knew it would be the last farewell. The women of my family have a history of premonition. Even as he smiled at me and described what riches he’d bring home from this journey, I rained kisses upon him, and I besought him to change his mind. But my husband was rather bewitched, you see, by the ocean’s charms. He saw himself as her master, yet I knew he’d one day succumb to her dangers. A woman, premonition or no, knows a predator when she sees one.  _

_ My husband had dreams; I knew them to be the portents of his death. He dreamt of a copper-haired creature with skin like the belly of a fish and pointed teeth. He told me in confidence that he’d seen this creature as a child. It has been his prerogative as a ship’s captain in the Royal Navy to find and capture this creature. I believe my husband thought to make a grand fortune with the creature’s capture. I cannot help but grieve, as among the follies of men, that he did not recognize that he was already in possession of a grand fortune - his very dear friends, his much beloved family, and our life together. _

_ Now, my Dear Reader, I must come to the most strenuous part of this letter - it weighs heavy on my heart and my mind, but I must persist. Pray the gods guide my hand and dry my eyes.  _

_ I shall tell you the dream that haunted me the nights before my poor husband’s death was confirmed to me:  _

_ On the bow of the  _ Emma _ stood the valorous Captain Lestrade, resplendent in his navy and red uniform, watching for a brewing storm in the distance. The day was bright, golden, and the waves were kind. Yet the grey gloom gathering in the north concerned the captain and his men. They kept a careful watch as they followed their route, and it was a great relief when the grey clouds faded into the horizon.  _

_ The men sang, to while away the time, their voices ringing out like church bells into the far distance. Gregory’s voice, rough and beautiful, led them in their revelry as they worked.  _

_ With nary a warning, green and black clouds descended and the waves grew rough. An uncanny storm caught them - the sea and sky that my husband was so loyal to was in mutiny.  _

_ “Men, to the sails! Attend to the lines!” Captain Lestrade commanded as he took hold of the wheel.  _

_ His first mate, Therault, walked among the sailors, shouting orders upon the Captain’s signals. One man nearly fell overboard, and with quick reflexes, Therault saved him from an almost certain drowning.  _

_ It was some time before the storm passed, but they had weathered it with no casualties to man or mast. Gregory commended Therault for thinking quick on his feet, and the callow lad, a Thomas Perron, was ever so grateful to the first mate.  _

_ They soon discovered that the storm had knocked them off course and into an area of unexplored water, islands where it is said the most fearsome monsters dwell, the kind that only Hell could breed. Perhaps most fearsome is a monster with a sweet voice and an appetite that compels it to gorge on the marrow of men. It is said their voices remind men of the lullabys their mothers sang to them as babes, or the first flirtation with the maiden destined to be their wife. Their minds cloud with nostalgia of a desperate kind, a longing that impels them to jump ship and become joined with the object of their yearning. It is a dirty trick, and the man may dash to pieces among the rocks where these sirens squat, or drown in the frigid sea. These ocean wraiths are coarse and ugly, with deformed limbs of a slippery and grotesque fish. A most hideous beast whose only fair skill is the beauty of their song. It is not a true, Gods-bestowed beauty, but an ancient thread of otherworldly-magic.  _

_ One of these creatures was more curious than the others, learned in dream magic, and lusted for more than just the taste of a man’s flesh. It was they who inserted themselves into the night-time visions of my husband. I know this to be true, because once they took my beloved, they sent this dream to me: the dream of his death. _

_ I must pause a moment here. It pains me deeply; I weep as I put these words to paper. But I will persist, for perhaps another woman will learn from my woes, and save the life of the man she loves, as I could not.  _

_ This malevolent creature knew its visage to be horrifying - awkward and lumbering when on the rocks in the craggy, weedy harbours - so it hid in the crevices, its eyes forever focused on the ship that carried the gallant Captain Lestrade. The fiend hid its ugliness, its sallow face and scaly flesh, its hair like wet, sticky and suckering seaweed. This creature waited as the boat neared its hiding place, Captain Lestrade not knowing the fate which would meet him there.  _

_ O, that Fortune had spared my intrepid husband! O, that Sweet Love had saved him and brought him home to me! But my tender love is no match for the appetite of such a villain. I am a widow done wrong, without hope for retribution.  _

_ The siren sang, and sang only for my husband’s ears. The notes of its song flew swiftly through the air like a bird on the wing, to him and him only, and as one enthralled, he cried out, “There! Can you hear it! An angel sings! The one I have waited for! The one I love!” I must wonder, Dear Reader, if perhaps the siren masked their voice as my own, for the captain so often referred to me as “his angel.” _

_ He hurled himself to the rail, renting his hair and his clothes like one impassioned, and though Therault and Perron lay hold to him, the siren’s call was relentless. He demanded they unhand him, wrenched his limbs from their hands and vaulted from the ship, diving into the bitter dark below.  _

_ There, he came to face the devil that tormented him in sleep. The monster of the deep was a tentacled thing with a pallid, pulpous head and bleak, ravening eyes. And my beloved’s last words, Dear Reader, I convey though I feel as though my heart breaks again. For he despaired. His last words, as the corpulent beast hooked him and pulled him under, were: “I love you - I’ve loved you all my life.” _

_ It is with a heavy heart that I recount this story for you. And should you question its truth, know then that when the ship returned, Mr Therault and Mr Perron granted me with a visit to tell me their versions of the tale. How the storm dropped on them from the sky, how they were in view of islands not on their maps. How they heard nothing, and yet my husband insisted he heard singing. They never saw a man look as my husband did - as frenzied in his eyes as a vagrant gone mad. How he pulled at his coat and kicked off his boots so he could dive into the water and follow this bodiless voice that none other could hear. How when he hit the water the temperature must have knocked sanity into him at last, for his last words were of his undying devotion to his wife.  _

_ They told it like my dream, and I wept and wept, and could not stop weeping for a full day. You must think me hysterical, but I cannot express the extent of my love and my regard for my husband. In my tears I found the language that words cannot give shape to.  _

_ It is with this in mind that I beg men to mind the omens found in dreams and the beseeching words of their wives. May the Gods grant you a long life, and may you recognize the grand fortune which surrounds you in your home, and do not go on a search in ill faith, to most certainly find a doomed end. Let my story stand as fair warning to all who would go beyond the borders of safety and save their darling wives from grief such as I must endure. _

_ Ever Your Servant, _

_ Mrs. A. Lestrade _

* * *

Amelia Lestrade lay down her quill and capped the inkwell. A smile crossed her lips as she waved the page to dry the ink.

“Comin’ to bed yet, love?” Pietro Medici rolled over in the bed to face her, his soft black curls askew, limned in gold from the firelight. 

“Nearly done,  _ amour _ .” She waved the pages again in the air and then rolled them. Next, she took a set of shears and cut a short length of ebony ribbon from a spool. 

He propped himself up on his elbow. “You brilliant woman. I’ve never seen a widow so full of glee as you.”

“Scoundrel. I’ll make a pretty penny from this publication, and with Lestrade’s wages from the Crown, I shall be set for life and poised to enter influential society.” She wrapped the pages with the ribbon. “Put it now to your mind’s eye: The Widow Lestrade, a solitary figure, still fair of face and much bereft over the loss of her late husband, the court’s own favoured Captain Gregory Lestrade. I expect the ladies will send their cards and I shall be ever so busy with tea and relating the haunting tale from my mouth to their ears. I may not measure up to them in station, but my notoriety will gain me entry to their houses. I am much too young to stay unmarried long, they’ll say. Too beautiful to leave to my own devices and pleasure.”

“Too vain, too,” Pietro barked a coarse laugh as he fell back in the sheets.

Amelia paused, the rolled pages in her hand. Her insides wormed with discomfort. “A woman must do what she must, for she is given little enough tools with which to live.”

He snorted, a sound that reminded her of her father’s pigs when she’d been just a scrape of a girl with dirt under her fingernails and a mud-stained hem. Pietro was a wonderful lover, but he didn’t match the finery of the bedroom. Decked with curtains tied with gold tassels, rugs woven from wool and silk, and a bedspread thick with soft down. The one room was larger than the grimy hovel she was born and raised in, alongside noisy siblings and dirty chickens. 

No matter; the sailor was on shore leave and would be out of her hair soon enough. He was only one in a line of lovers.

“Did you have no affection for your husband at all?”

Amelia looked down at her letter, tied and soon to be delivered to the editors of the city paper. “Once, perhaps. When first he dazzled me.” She thought of his moon-white smile, his large, doleful eyes. That handsome face. “But his heart long belonged to another, and I knew soon that I was merely a convenience. He was expected to have a wife, and I was the means to fulfill the obligation while scandalising his family.”

“Hm. Why did he not marry his first love?”

Amelia fingered the end of the ribbon. She was better off without him, but still, it galled to be second - the feeling slid between her shoulder blades like a thin needle of unease.  _ Why, indeed? _

“I fear I shall never know the answer.”

* * *

“It was passing strange, don’t you think? The Widow Lestrade and her words to us as she left,” Perron said into his ale as he watched the bubbles pop.

“Grief can do funny things to a woman’s mind,” Therault said. The dingy little pub was quiet that early afternoon. For a few coins, they’d settled here to have a drink and some stew, still in uniform but with hats off and coats unbuttoned. 

The air was redolent with the odors of yeast and vinegar. A smattering of patrons sat at the other end of the bar, old men with clay mugs glued to their hands, muttering reminiscences to each other. One of them would harass the others to ‘speak up!’ now and again, in a thick brogue. 

“And no children to comfort her,” Perron said. “He never did talk much of her. She’s quite pretty.”

“And as vain as a cockerel,” Therault said. The edge of venom in his voice surprised Perron. The widow was bereaved, though few made grief look so appealing. 

“She got license to, don’t she?” 

The older man said nothing. Perron peered at him. With steely eyes and a near-perpetual scowl, Therault intimidated most people. Perron liked to think he was an exception. “Why do you suppose the Gods never thought to bless their union?”

Therault lifted one shoulder as he exhaled in a rough breath. “I don’t think much on the captain’s personal life.” He tilted his face to look at him. “Listen, you’re a good lad. These questions you have aren’t the right sort to be asking after the man’s dead, is all.”

“Apologies, sir,” Perron said as he looked down at his pint. “I liked him. He was a good man and a good captain. A daring man, too. I never thought I’d see the things I’ve seen.” Corpse-like creatures with talons. Winged beasts with the heads of women. Bladder-like sea monsters with whiptails and single eyes. 

And the thing that opened its maw, rows of teeth like white church spires, aimed at the man he called Captain.

Therault traced the condensation on the bar with one thick finger. He was a big man, barrel-chested, likely handsome in his youth. Grizzled now with time, and weathered by too many years on the water and in the sun. “The world has things which should never be seen, doors that should never be opened, lest a man lose his bearings. It won’t do to think on the captain’s doings, for that way lies madness.”

Therault’s words settled over both of them like a sodden, heavy blanket. Perron licked his dry lips, thought of Captain’s Lestrade’s eyes as he wrested the clothes from his body. Happy. Alive. Joyous. Not at all how he thought a madman should seem in the drowning of his sanity.

Mad, nonetheless, though he cried out in jubilation when he hopped over the rail and plummeted to the watery deep. 

“Do you think the madness settled there when we saw the islands, or do you figure it’d been there awhile, watered by the journey?” Perron dared to ask.

Therault frowned. “I’m no doctor nor priest, Perron.”

“But you knew him the best among us all. Was there never a clue that the captain was suffering some malady?”

Therault’s frown deepened, his face as craggy as the bluffs at the edge of the harbour. Perron opened his mouth to pursue his line of questioning when Therault whipped around and gripped his wrist like a vise. “Tell anyone what I am about to tell you and I won’t hesitate to cut your throat, burn your remains, and spread your ashes on the Death-eater’s altar.”

Fear stabbed through him like cold steel. The grasp about his wrist pained him so badly it was as if Therault might crush it. 

“Therault, I loved the captain, as so many of us did,” he gasped. “I wouldn’t - I wouldn’t smear his name.”

Therault released him, and the pain ebbed away in small waves. Perron resisted the urge to rub at it.

Therault ignored his astonished stare and chugged his drink. Stared off to the back of the bar. “Sometimes, when the captain was good and liquored, he’d tell me about these dreams of his. Of a red-haired boy that saved him from drowning. Carried him to shore, swam like a fish, he said. Scales and all. But on land, he was a human boy. And he saw him again and again, sometimes in the window of his room, sometimes at the end of his family’s dock. Sometimes the boy was human, and other times, he was something else.”

“Like a merman?”

“Don’t say it out loud! We’d do best to never attract their notice. Besides, they can’t change from man to fish and back, can they?” Therault snorted through his nose. “That fiend was his albatross, and it dragged him down at last.”

Perron thought to himself in silence. When he spoke again, he said, “The captain always seemed as if he were looking for something. He did the Court’s bidding and brought them curiosities and wealth, but he never looked at a woman or a man for his bed, and he never rested well between journeys, did he?”

Therault eyed him with a warning look. Perron ducked his head, his face heating. “I mean no disrespect. I only begin to suspect -”

“Say no more on it. A good man is dead. It’s best we honor his memory and forget the circumstances of his death, lest we too succumb.” Therault knocked his mug into Perron’s and drank the last of it.

For the first time since the journey home, Perron was seized with a marrow-deep fear. “But, we told Widow Lestrade -”

“And now we drink to forget. Let us never speak of it again.”

Perron stared at the floor between their stools. Smudges and shadows lay there, and for the first time in his life, he wondered if perhaps he knew too much. 


	2. time has no shore

The first time he saw a dangerous beast, it wore a human skin and had a human face. 

Gregory Lestrade of Coeur de Lion Manor was bent over a tidal pool, fishing sea stars out of the warming water and tossing them to cooler shallows. The clattering of pebbles behind him alerted him to the presence of another. He whirled around.

A slender boy, about his age of ten years, stood there, watching him.

And utterly naked.

“Where are your clothes?” Greg said, his heart in his throat.

“Hello,” the boy said. He held his hand up, as if in greeting. 

“Hello,” Greg said. “What happened to your clothes?”

The boy tilted his head. The red of his hair shone in the sunlight like the gleam of fruit in a basket. 

“Do you understand me?” Greg asked.

“Hello,” the boy said again. 

“Hello,” Greg said. He placed one hand over his chest. “I’m Gregory Lestrade.”

“Hello,” the boy said and placed one hand over his bare, quartz-white chest. “I’m Gregory Lestrade.”

Greg burst with laughter. “No. No. I mean - I’m Gregory Lestrade.” He pointed to himself. “Greg.” Then he pointed his finger to the boy, eyebrows raised in question.

The boy looked at Greg’s finger, and for a second, Greg was reminded of the cat that lingered outside the kitchen door. The way the rangy feline would sniff Greg’s finger instead of paying attention to where Greg pointed. 

The boy pointed to himself and said something that Greg couldn’t quite parse.

“I don’t understand you.”

He pointed to himself again. “Mycroft.”

“Mycroft?”

And so it went like that for a number of days. The boy pointed at objects and Greg would name them. Mycroft would repeat and point to something else. Greg took books from his family library and would read them to Mycroft. They spent hours with Mycroft learning the language. And Greg could not be persuaded to spend his time otherwise, if Mycroft was available to talk at the beach. 

Greg considered telling someone. A boy with no clothing of his own? Only rust-red hair and eyes the changing color of a fish’s scales. He was ethereal, with skin that never seemed to take on the hue of the sun, but instead remained pearlescent. Though after some days together, Greg noticed that his skin would start to freckle, a fact that delighted him endlessly. 

He hid old clothes of his own in a small cave he’d found along the rocks in the face of the cliff that bordered his father’s beach. He’d convinced the boy to wear them, though they were a bit short. The boy was thin, willowy, with a sharp nose and a wide mouth. For some reason Greg couldn’t identify, he found he liked the sight of the boy in his old britches and shirt. And, if anyone caught them at the beach, he could lie and say the boy was from the town, and not some strange child scampering naked along the shore. 

It was a secret, a mystery, and it was all his own.

* * *

The sea glittered beneath the sun like the facets of a precious stone. Ospreys flew high into the air and dove back down. Cormorants sunned themselves on rocks mottled with green seaweed. Gulls cried to one another, soaring below the white clouds. 

Greg sat at the end of his father’s dock, tanned toes just touching the surface of the water. His eyes scanned the horizon for passing ships, headed to the harbour proper. The Lestrade family’s private cove wasn’t a far walk from town, but it was summer, and Greg preferred to stretch out on the sand or dangle his feet from the dock. He knew his family thought him strange to prefer this almost daily sojourn outdoors, but he didn’t mind. The smell of brine and sand beckoned him - and, he knew, any day now Mycroft would appear again.

“Why do you play so often alone?” Greg’s mother would ask. “Don’t you have friends in town?”

“I like the beach.” As the third son in the house, he didn’t share the responsibilities of the elder sons, who were expected to go into their father’s business. And good riddance to that - he preferred the sea. 

Sometimes he brought paper and some charcoal; he’d explore the tidal pools and sketch the creatures he found living there. Such resolute little organisms that could withstand extremes in weather and temperature, in both near-dry, salty puddles and brackish, deep pools. The shelled crabs and the sea stars would be the first to boil if the water grew too warm, but the snails were tenacious, and the seaweed stayed green unless it dried. 

Mycroft’s understanding of the language grew in leaps and bounds that first summer. In return, he told Greg stories about whales, sharks, nixies, flying fish, nereids, and sea serpents. When Greg pressed him for stories of far more dangerous things, things adults shushed him about, tremendous monsters believed to be of unearthly origins, Mycroft deflected. Told him the adults practiced a wisdom he would do better to heed. 

Greg hadn’t liked that, but he resigned himself to the idea that it was better to let sleeping dragons lie.

He sensed the boy behind him before he could see him, his joy spreading through him like a warm bath. “You’ve been released,” Mycroft said, his clipped accent having softened with practice, becoming smooth and near unnoticeable. 

For a long time, Greg imagined Mycroft lived in the hills. There were people who lived in the woods, referred to as the Wildies, and Mycroft was certainly strange and didn’t seem to know anything about buildings or ships. At first.

But he learned quickly. 

“What are you thinking about?” Mycroft asked.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Greg said. “I hope we stay best friends forever.”

Mycroft ducked his head, his red curls bobbing in the breeze. “Yes.” 

Summer after summer, for seven summers, the boys met in the cove and played together. Mycroft’s people were nomadic - which Greg didn’t know about the Wildies.

But, eventually, he cottoned on that Mycroft was not one of them.

* * *

The things that drew him to Mycroft included his natural brilliance, his ability to beat Greg at swimming, and his skill in song. His range was wide, from the lowest, sonorous register to seraphim heights.

“You sing like an angel,” an enchanted Greg said.

Mycroft turned his face to the sea. “I should like to fly like one, but alas, only my voice can reach the heavens.”

Greg laughed at that. Mycroft smiled. He looked best when he smiled. 

“Come on, let’s swim!” Greg divested himself of his clothing and Mycroft followed suit. They waded a ways in and dove into the gentle waves, challenging one another to a race that Mycroft won easily, while Greg jokingly accused him of cheating. The two laughed long as the sun dipped toward the horizon, spilling golden light across bare skin and open mouths. 

* * *

Mycroft behaved in strange ways, occasionally. 

“If ever I should disappear, never go looking for me,” he said.

“What?”

“Promise me. If I should go, do not look for me. If we are swimming or on the beach, and you should turn and not be able to find me, you mustn’t search for me. Promise me.” His serious blue-grey eyes bored into Greg’s.

“I - I promise,” Greg said, though fear spiked through his chest.

The first time it happened, they were playing along boulders at one end of the cove. Greg clambered to the top of one and challenged Mycroft to a duel with a piece of clunky driftwood. It made for a ridiculous sword, and he laughed as he brandished it in the air, expecting to hear Mycroft burst into giggles at his antics.

Instead, the only sound was the lapping of waves at the sand, and the call of shorebirds in the distance. 

“Mycroft?” he called. He looked around, expecting the boy to jump at him. “Mycroft?”

As he hopped down, he heard his tutor, a sour-faced middle-aged man with one eye, call his name.

The one eye had always fascinated him. As a small child, he’d asked the man if he was a pirate. To which the curmudgeon replied, “Arr,” which had Greg squealing in delight. A crosspatch he might normally be, but his sense of humour cropped up in unexpected ways. 

He wasn’t so humourous this time, having come to fetch Greg. Greg took one last look around him, and saw nothing to suggest his playmate was there. He followed his tutor, Frederick, home. 

The next sudden disappearance was far more frightening. 

“Ready? Go!” The two dove headfirst into the waves. Greg stroked arms overhead as his feet kicked powerfully behind him. When he felt the rough wood of the dock, he surfaced with a salt-water tanged grin. Wiping the hair back from his face, he whipped his head about to see Mycroft. He bobbed in the water, one hand on a dock piling. 

Mycroft didn’t surface. 

Greg popped under the water. He emerged. Yelled Mycroft’s name. 

“Gregory!” It was Frederick, standing on the dock, looking put upon and dour, black satin eyepatch in place. 

Greg looked again around him, gripping the piling, wondering if he should tell Frederick that he was swimming with a boy, and the boy had gone. 

“Gregory! Quickly, if you please.”

Shaking, Greg clambered up the wood and on the dock. 

“Goodness, young man, put your clothes on. What if the maid had come for you?” 

Trembling, Greg went to his pile of clothes on the dock. Mycroft’s were in a pile next to his, and Frederick hadn’t seemed to notice. He was looking away from Greg, his mouth a flat horizon. He shoved the clothes into gaps between the planks, and then pulled on his own. He looked out onto the water where they had swam, praying to see Mycroft come up, or dreading spying a body in the water. 

“What is taking you so long?” 

Sick to his stomach, Greg followed Frederick up the wooden staircase that led to the manor. 

He was so shaken with fear that he couldn’t eat his supper and stayed up half the night, wrapped in his covers on his bed, staring toward the window that looked out to sea. His family thought him ill. 

The next morning he raced out of the house unbeknownst to anyone, and ran down to the shore. 

“Mycroft!” he shouted into the wind. The sun was bright and the waves were fast, heavy with the gusts. White crests roiled into tumbles of sea foam, and the gulls circled overhead.

“Greg?” Mycroft’s voice sounded from behind him.

Greg whirled around. “Mycroft!” he wheezed. The relief that flooded him gave way to a rash flare of anger, and then tears.

Mycroft’s arms encircled him, and he held him, both of them shaking. 

* * *

The last days of summer were the most difficult. Mycroft would grow despondent, and Greg would try to bring him out of it with jokes and jests. “You’ve grown tired of me as it is, Mycroft. What luck that you will get to travel a whole ocean away from me.”

Mycroft’s smiles were strained, but he tried for Greg’s sake.

Most poignant in his memories was the summer he turned sixteen. Mycroft stood waist-deep in the water, facing the sunset. His hair had grown to the small of his back, and curled like petals on honeysuckle vine. While they still undressed for the occasional race to the end of the dock, there’d been furtive glances and pink cheeks, shy words and soft touches. Things that seemed meaningful, or meaningful in a different way.

Greg wanted to be brave, especially in what little time they had left. He waded up behind him, slid his arms about his waist, and leaned his head on his shoulder. Mycroft clasped his arms over his and they stood like that for a long time. It was the last night he saw Mycroft that year. 

* * *

Greg learned how to sail a ship with a friend of his father. Unbeknownst to his parents, Greg found he loved the wild freedom of walking barefoot along the rough lines and climbing to the crow’s nest, feeling the warm wood beneath his hands and the starting formations of calluses. He strolled the deck pretending he was a ship’s captain, navigating with the stars and crossing the open ocean to discover treasures and fight monsters. And when the sailors told him that he could very well be an officer in the Royal Navy, he realized that was the key to going out and exploring the world and perhaps, even seeing some of the things that Mycroft had described to him. 

The spring he turned seventeen he was allowed to embark upon a short journey to a set of islands to the south. It was thrilling, and at times he hung over the edge to stare into the water below as they passed.

“You are a strange one, Lestrade, to stare into the water like that. What do you see there?”

“Oh,” Greg turned red. “I’ve heard such tales of what lurks in the water. I wondered if I might see something.”

“Oh we’ll be avoiding the most dangerous places. You may get lucky and see a porpoise. Or a mermaid.” And the man winked.

A cabin boy with square shoulders and tanned skin often walked about with only his britches, his muscled body shining with sweat in the sun. When Greg first spied him, his body’s response was unexpected. Moved to blush, he looked away, and unbidden, he thought of the lean, long body of Mycroft who had shot up in height over the years. 

The men often told bawdy tales of lust and attraction, primarily toward women. Women were pretty enough, but Greg found his thoughts turning to Mycroft more and more. 

This boy was the first to ever turn his head in such an abrupt way. And when he saw Greg staring, he winked. 

Greg turned to the other direction and refused to speak to him. 

He began to long for home.

The next afternoon as he leaned over the railing, staring down into the water, he leaned too far. A sudden dip of the ship caught him by surprise. He only had time for a surprised shout as he found himself dropping like a stone into the sea.

The water was frigid, clamped around his body like a layer of ice. When he surfaced and gasped for air his mouth filled with briny water. His eyes burned as he closed them and found himself pulled under. 

He opened his eyes long enough to see the light-reflective surface receding from him as the pull of the ship hauled him deeper. For a moment, it reminded him of a cloudy firmament veined with gold, and he remembered Mycroft and his spoken wish to fly as one of the angels. It was a memory from four summers before, when they were just boys playing games along the shoreline.

Then arms, familiar arms surrounded him, and he had the sense of being pulled up.

_Mycroft._

He broke the surface, his lungs burning with the intake of air, gasping and coughing as Mycroft held him above the surface. 

“Do you trust me?” Mycroft asked, his breath warm on his ear.

Greg couldn’t answer as his ribs shook with the effort to expel all droplets of water from his lungs. 

Mycroft covered Greg’s mouth with his own. A heady blast of oxygen filled Greg’s lungs and made his head spin. 

Under they went again. 

Greg held his breath as Mycroft swam, tugging Greg along. His grip was tight and as Greg’s panic blazed he struggled against Mycroft. Mycroft held him tighter. 

Greg’s lungs scalded with the need to breathe. Greg held onto his last breath of air until a dire pain caused his muscles to take over. He blew out a blast of bubbles, and in fear, inhaled. On the intake, instead of drowning, Greg found that somehow, he was breathing.

Underwater.

And his eyes were open, no longer stinging with the salinity.

Mycroft’s hold was certain, pressing Greg close to his chest. His hair had grown long, sweeping behind him in a beautiful cascade of burgundy. 

Greg stared at the blue expanse around them - a beautiful sky blue above, changing to sapphire and finally to a dark navy, almost like night, below. 

He realized Mycroft held him with both arms and propelled them forward at an unnatural speed. That’s when he looked - Mycroft’s legs were scaled, separate, unlike a fish’s tail. Long fins waved with them, pushing aside great swaths of water.

Fear flickered in his heart, but that was dampened by exhilaration; a joy in discovery. Mycroft was one of these strange sea creatures humans knew so little about. And one of the ones they feared.

Yet in Mycroft’s arms, he knew security. An enduring friendship. He might call it love.

He ducked his head, thinking of the broad shoulders and tanned chest of the cabin boy, and then the lovely white limbs of his best friend. His Mycroft.

Who’d saved him and held him close. 

Soon he could see tracts of seaweed and a sandy bottom. Shells and detritus lay about, sea stars and silvery fish lingered along the bottom.

It wasn’t long - for Mycroft swam as fast as any ship it seemed, perhaps faster, or perhaps Greg had fallen asleep. They entered the shallows, and when they came to the surface, Greg could see his family’s dock. Mycroft stood, and carrying Greg bridal style, he lay him on the sand.

“Mycroft,” Greg said. “You…”

Mycroft lowered his head. He was naked and his legs were human again, though Greg could see the suggestion of scales along his ankles and calves. 

“The tales you used to say. You...they’re things you’ve actually seen, aren’t they?” His chest heaved with the work of his lungs. 

Mycroft was kneeling beside him, and now he sat back, his arms on his knees. He wasn’t shy about his lack of clothing. But then, he never was. 

“My people travel through here in the summer. We follow the fish, North to South, in a great circle. We don’t always come close to human harbours, but I can’t be sorry for the day we met. I made it a point to come here every time we neared, so we could continue our acquaintance.” He faced the sea. The sun limned his profile, like the gold gilding on an illuminated manuscript. 

“But why?” Greg asked, his heart beating hard. 

Mycroft faced him, his eyes the color of the slick, grey skin of a porpoise. Brimming now with their own sort of salt water. “Do you really not know?”

On impulse Greg raised his hand to Mycroft’s face. Touched the soft, wet skin there. The silky reddish hair that glowed in the sun like a halo of curls when it dried. The aquiline nose and the supple lips. His fingers traced it all, and when a tear rolled down Mycroft’s cheek, Greg leaned forward and captured it with his mouth. Mycroft gasped, and Greg kissed those parted lips. They were warm and pressed back against his with a gentle pressure. 

Emboldened, Greg held Mycroft’s face with both hands and kissed him again, and then again, as if he could never get enough. They lay back in the sand, as gritty as it was against their skin, but ignored it for the sweet rush and relief of acknowledging long hidden physical urges together.

Greg slid his tongue into Mycroft’s mouth and ran it along Mycroft's sharp teeth. Mycroft pulled back. “Careful,” he said.

“You don’t frighten me,” Greg said.

Mycroft smiled. “Neither you, me.”

“Good,” Greg laughed. “That’s good.”

“Does this mean...you return my feelings?”

“You are my dearest friend,” Greg said. “I have long ignored these feelings because I didn’t dare hope you could return them.”

A smile crossed Mycroft’s face. “I dared not hope.”

“I adore you,” Greg whispered. 

Mycroft kissed him. “It is a strange love, but not unheard of among my people.”

“To go across species, or to be two males in love?”

“Either.”

Greg kissed the end of his nose. “Then I fear it is your people that are the more tolerable, for among humans, it isn’t the way.”

“I know,” Mycroft said, and Greg could see the sadness in his face.

“I want to be yours, though,” Greg said. “If this means I must run away, then I shall run away, and we shan’t ever be parted.”

Mycroft’s face beamed like the sun. “You would do that?”

“For you? You who have always been my most favorite person? And to know you return my affection? I would be a fool not to.”

“Then you have made me happy, indeed,” Mycroft said and traced Greg’s collarbone with his slim fingers. “You need not run away yet. Your family dotes upon you.”

“Yes.” Greg took Mycroft’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “So, perhaps I will stay another winter. I will be of age at eighteen.”

“So, another winter yet?” 

“Yes. And then I shall be yours forever. I promise.”

More whispered promises followed as the two kissed and stroked and basked in their love beneath the setting sun. 

* * *

“I ask you again. How did you return home?”

His father’s study was a quiet, somber place with shelves lined with books and scrolls and stacks of paper. An abacus on his desk and maps scattered across the floor. The lamp on the desk corner cast a low light across the paperwork there. Heavy damask curtains allowed only a sliver of daylight into the room.

Greg’s father, Abraham Lestrade, waited for his answer with a slight scowl on his saturnine face. The air choked with the scent of stale tobacco.

“I know not. I awoke on the beach.” Greg wouldn’t give Mycroft away. He’d spent the night on the beach, and finally, he approached his father’s house. The ship wasn’t set to land in the harbour for at least another day. Greg had no way of explaining how he’d come back safely. 

And he understood that for others to know about Mycroft would be dangerous for them both. 

His father exhaled with impatience. “You have the temerity to sit there and lie to your father’s face. Are you so bewitched? Have you no regard for your family’s worry? Your mother’s health? Tell me, son, what it is you’re hiding.”

Fear leapt into Greg’s chest and tangled his tongue. “I - beg your pardon? Father? Hiding? I -”

“Enough,” Abraham said. “It’s been decided. You will be attending university in the mountains.”

“But, I want to stay here -”

“If you are to help your brother with the business -”

“Might I help at sea? With our acquisitions?”

“Your preoccupation with the sea is what brings us here,” his father said. “I thought it fine to indulge your interest in sailing. But I see now that I have failed to protect you.”

“Father?”

“Frederick came to me with a worrying tale.” 

Greg’s heart seized. “Frederick?”

“I told him it couldn’t be true, as the _Arkham_ has yet to return. And yet, here you are, whole and unharmed and somehow days away from a ship that was traveling the ocean!”

Greg’s palms sweated and he rubbed them on his thighs. “What did Frederick see?” His voice was almost a whisper. _Oh Gods, not Mycroft._

“The carriage leaves on the morrow. I’ve had the servants pack your things. You will do as I ask.”

“So - so soon? But, father -”

“Yes.” His father fixed him with a severe look, his eyes black in the low light. “One thing I will not tolerate are rumours, Gregory. Particularly scandalous rumours. You will not dally with men, for one.”

Greg froze in place. Fear crackled through his skin like ice over water. “Father?”

“Our cove is not so private, Gregory. Frederick saw - I am -” He raised his hand and then lowered it. “I can’t speak another word to this abomination. You will go to the university. In the meantime, your mother and I will find you a suitable wife. It will be good for you to stay far from whatever in the sea has set its sights on you, and for you to know the benefits of having a wife. Someday you’ll have children in your care. And when you do, you’ll know I have done the right thing.”

Greg’s world cracked. The breath left his lungs and the lack of oxygen dizzied his head. “What?” It was hard to get enough air to speak. “What did he see?”

“It matters not.”

“Please -”

“Get out of my sight.” The words hit him like a physical blow.

Outside, the cacophonous cries of gulls could be heard, as if rising in a great storm. 

He looked to the window, toward the ocean. 

To Mycroft.

And despaired.


	3. it rushes on

Amelia Brown was a flower growing in mud. With a single glance at her muscled build, callused hands, and well-mended dress, Greg knew she was of peasant breeding and likely worked a farm. She was lovely though, with hair the color of a raven’s wing and eyes like the sea. For just a second, it brought Mycroft to his thoughts, which triggered an old ache in his chest.

They met by chance, when her brother snuck into the pub to talk amongst the sailors - it seemed he had his own dream of escaping farm life and becoming a sailor. The lad got sloshed while rousing with the younger men, and Amelia came after him to drag him home, full of spit and vinegar, which amused Greg to no end. Greg offered to help her take the boy home, and on the way, she startled him with her wit, and her candid questions about his adventures.

He’d avoided marriage by joining the navy straight after university. The letters from his parents and brothers grew more urgent over the years, and he ignored them. Instead, he focused on his commissions, traveling as far as he could. If there was talk of a strange creature or an old magical place, he was the first to volunteer for the journey, and became renowned for his bravery and prowess. He came back to report on what he’d seen, recorded in journals with sketches and stories. Though sailors as a whole were a suspicious lot, the lure of treasure and adventure drew many to his command. He didn’t worry about threats against his inheritance, as he’d become a favourite at Court, and his pockets were full. 

It’d been over a decade since he’d last seen any member of his family when he received a letter from his father announcing a marital arrangement with the daughter of a baron. 

Greg, that night as he drank an ale in a port pub, thought to himself that he would never stop being harassed until he was married. Lovely Amelia Brown came to mind. She would be wasted as a farmer’s wife - her pluck would wilt, her smarts would go unused, and she’d perhaps die in childbirth. It was easy to admire her intelligence, and though he would never fall in love with her, he did enjoy her company. 

The best part was that despite her great beauty, his family would never accept her breeding. She was exactly what he needed - not some infatuated maiden who would profess to fall in love with him, but a person who would know her role beside his. The role of his wife, the seed of scandal in his family, who would benefit from her raise in station. 

He made his offer, and by the time he returned to Coeur de Lion Manor, she was Mrs. Gregory Abraham Lestrade. His father sought to dissolve the marriage, and when he could not, he disinherited his son.

Which suited Greg. 

Before he left the manor, he went down to the cove and headed for the dock. It was one of those bright days though the sun hung low over the ocean. Early summer. Silhouettes of birds in flight against the sky. The waves curled and hit the sand, the sound most familiar to his ears. 

No Mycroft appeared.

“Dear husband, where do you go in your thoughts when you look out upon the ocean?”

He’d not heard Amelia follow him.

“Dear wife,” he said. “I am looking for -”  _ someone, _ “- something I lost long ago.”

Amelia glanced over the water as she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “It is a vast sea, my captain. How will you ever find it?” Her face looked lovely in the light, reminding him of a figure in stained glass with the sun glowing from the other side. When she’d presented herself to him the other night in their bedchamber, he’d kissed her forehead and wished her pleasant dreams. While he’d provide for her, he’d told her it was to be a marriage in name for both their benefits. Nothing more. 

While it dampened the flames of her ardour, the black smoke of her disappointment caused him to wonder if he’d made the correct choice. For now, she was sweet and demure. Solicitous of his feelings. It unnerved him. 

Gregory turned back to watch the setting sun, remembering white limbs and sand and the gentle press of lips. Ginger locks in the golden light. “I will look for as long it takes.” 

* * *

Not long after marrying Amelia, Greg fell into a period of dank despair. He drank and smoked and wallowed about the piers at night. Therault ensured he wasn’t robbed and that he ended up in a bed at night rather than face-down in the water. 

“What is it that ails you Captain? I’ve never seen a man so miserable so soon after his marriage. That’s a trick that normally takes years to manifest,” Therault once asked.

Greg waved him away as he stared at the stars overhead. “Let me drown my sorrows, or better yet, let me drown in the salt of the sea.”

“I won’t have it. Let’s get to bed with ye.”

One night, Greg stood at the end of a long pier. The soft twilight had given way to a dark, moonless night. The water lapped against the pilings in a gentle rhythm, lulling him like the rocking of a mother with her child. Men laughed in the distance. No doubt Therault was near, watching over him like a shadow. 

The memory of his fall to the water as a youth dribbled through his mind. Flashes of Mycroft’s embrace, his lips on Greg’s to give him breath, his unnatural speed through the columns of water. How had he known that Greg was on the brink of needing rescue?

What if he needed rescuing once again?

Greg’s hands trembled on the rail.

As quick as the flap of a gull’s wing, he swung himself over the rail and into the ink-black water. The cold astonished him, as it did every time he’d entered the sea. He didn’t use his arms to push himself to the surface, but instead sank in the grave dark. For a second, he thought of the birds dropping clams and mussels to the rocks along the shore, hoping the fall would split the shell open so the birds could have their fill of the creature within, tearing the soft flesh asunder. 

A crash in the water echoed beside him. In the murk, he felt a hand touch his shoulder, and then grip his jacket. He fought against the unknown hands, but arms lifted him to the surface, where the shout of men could be heard ringing through the night air.

The saltwater on his face was a mix of ocean and tears. 

He made no sound as he wept, as he lay limp in arms that pulled him onto the pier. Therault propped him upright. 

“I’ve got him now,” Therault said. “I’ll make sure he gets home. Thank you.” Footsteps faded down the wood planks of the pier.

Therault’s face was close to his. “Captain, you’ll kill yourself going on like this. What darkness has hold of you?” The raw worry in his voice sharpened Greg’s senses. He lifted his head, and though he couldn’t see Therault that well, he knew the man was shaking from the cold.

_ No Mycroft came. _

Greg thumped his head against the wood post. Gathered his thoughts. Coughed. Gritted his teeth as the damp cold settled into his bones. “I could never ask for a kinder and more loyal friend than you,” he said, choked with disappointment and shame. “But you mistake me, sir. I’m not hoping for death. I thought if I threw myself to the water, he might come for me.”

“Who? Who would come for you?”

“The boy with scales and the voice of an angel,” Greg said as his stomach pinwheeled with unease. 

The next thing he knew he lurched to one side, spewing the contents of his stomach on the ground. Therault swore. The world spun as he was hefted to his feet, and leaning against the familiar frame of his first mate. Greg was directed to their lodging. Therault peeled him of his wet clothes and dropped him into the soft embrace of his bed covers, dreaming of a slender youth with hair like autumn leaves and eyes like a storm over the sea.

The next morning, he swore off drink for at least a while. 

Therault wouldn’t look at him. Stared at the tabletop of where they sat. Other men from their crew sat at nearby tables, a quiet murmur among them, along with furtive looks at their captain.

Greg’s ears burned to think of what he’d nearly done the night before.

Mycroft hadn’t saved him. Therault did.

He began to speak, soft and steady, to his first mate. “I’ve a duty to you and the men. You’ve been a good friend, Therault. I promise you, my bout of madness is at its end. You’ve nothing more to worry about.”

Therault looked at him then. Held out his hand.

Greg shook it. 

It didn’t stop him from yearning for Mycroft. It did help him focus on his role as Captain to a crew of devoted men, to expand the Court’s trade routes, and to help fill everyone’s pockets with coin.

Until he got news of a strange happening - a pod of people who swam like dolphins, used the magic of song to draw people near, and sucked the marrow from the bones of pirates. 

* * *

The letter came from a fellow captain in the Royal Navy, one Mason P. Davies, who Greg knew from training. Captain Davies saw the bones for himself and directed his crew from there as quickly as the winds could carry them.

_ I knew you, with your tastes for the strange, would want to hear my tale. I would not have believed it if I did not see it with mine own eyes. They took to the water like seals, but they had scales and fins like fish. No selkies were these people. And the bones - I shudder to think upon them. The fate which befell these pirates likely saved my crew from the same, for their bellies must have been full after such a great feast. _

For a long while that night, Greg held the letter in his hand and watched the oil in the lamp burn low. He’d not received a new missive from the Court, and though it’d been a month since the other captain had seen the people, the coordinates matched a circuit Greg had been mapping. Any rumour of 'sirens' or 'merpeople' as people called them, went into a file. Over the years, he’d managed to extrapolate the course of a migration that circled around the oceans - and would pass by his own town, where his family’s private cove lay, in late summer. 

_ We follow the fish, North to South, in a great circle _ , Mycroft had said.

That’s how Captain Greg Lestrade knew where the nomadic sea tribe would go next. He called for his crew to prepare for the journey. It was quickly done, and the _Emma_ was on its way again.

And as the ship neared its destination, the storm dropped.

* * *

The air grew thick and heavy, humid, with a coming storm. A crackle of energy in the sky caused the hairs on the back of his neck to raise. Gregory’s pulse thudded in his ears as he watched the sky turn black. Parts of it churned with a deep green, like swirling seaweed. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen in the sky.

He shouted orders to Therault as he grabbed the wheel.

When the ship rocked and the waves shot up in height, Greg thought of the time he fell from the rail: the shock of the cold water, and then the warm arms that encircled him and brought him up to the surface. 

Would it happen again? Was Mycroft watching?

_ He has to know I am out here for him. I haven’t given up. _

As silver as his hair was, he wasn’t too old for sailing yet, but he feared this preternatural storm might do them in. 

“Undo the sails! Bring her about, men!” Therault carried Greg’s order down as the wind lifted, a great gust rocking the ship. A spray of the salty water hit his face. The fresh smell of the air was gone, and instead everything stank of sulphur - an old magic smell, he realized. 

His heart thundered in his chest as the helm fought against him. He braced his legs on the deck, pushed back against the wheel, and refused to give ground to the force that threatened to steal control from him. His men scrambled about the deck like ants in a panic. 

Greg faced the sky, wondering what gods they must have offended to have earned such treatment. “Is it because I loved him and not my wife?” he shouted, not caring who heard. Lightning whitened the sky and thunder roared. The spindrift of water soaked his clothes and still he held the wheel, ice-cold as it was when the cloth stuck to his skin. The storm raged, and somewhere inside of him, an answering rage swelled. He looked up at the sky again. “I won’t let you take us down!” As bold and brazen as it was, Greg thought again of his fair-skinned beloved. His knuckles ached with his grip on the helm, and his muscles strained with the pressure - until, as if the ship had been lifted and dropped into the eye of the storm, it was over.

The waves dropped from their tremendous heights. The clouds dissipated from the sky like steam from a pot. The sun showed its face and in the distance, gulls called out. Greg held the wheel still, his knees bent as his legs braced against the deck. He relaxed his hold - slowly, slowly. He turned his face to peer at his men. Their own faces were turned at the sky, the sun incandescent on their skin.

“What witchcraft be this?” someone said.

Murmurs rippled across the deck. “Sorcery.” “Unnatural.”  “Are we dead?”

“Land ho!”

Gregory turned to the other direction. Where there had been only blue water before the storm dropped, now sat three green-dressed islands. The middle was the tallest. Each island was surrounded by wet boulders, but the middle one had an opening of sandy beaches. 

The hairs on Greg’s neck tingled. 

“Captain?” Therault stood at his side.

Greg rolled his shoulders and tilted his chin. “What do you make of it?”

“No good can come from it.” Therault carried a natural suspicion of anything out of the ordinary, and now his mug twisted in a moue of disdain.

Greg swept his gaze over the view again. He looked up at the sky. “The sun seems much higher now, doesn’t it?”

Therault’s face grew grey. “Do you suppose we were stuck in the storm for longer than it seemed?”

Greg’s muscles still hurt from the strain. His shoulders were tense and his jaw ached. “It looks peaceful.”

“Sir, I am fair certain that you are bravest among us, but should we not wait for the stars to plot our journey home?”

Greg laughed, which caught the attention of some of the men. “You jest with my vanity, but are likely correct. That’s why you’re my number one.” He clapped his hand on Therault’s shoulder. That’s when he spotted one of the younger sailors on the deck with a blanket wrapped about his shoulders. “Perron?”

“Almost fell overboard. Caught on one of the lines. I pulled him up.”

“Saved his life, Captain!” Another man called.

“You’re a good man, Therault. Dine with me tonight, and bring Perron with you. He’ll need a little cheering up after a fall like that.”

“That’s good of you sir, I shall inform him.”

“Most excellent. Now -” A soft sound arose, like a humming in the air. It sent a tingle down his neck. He turned to the islands. “You hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“That -” It was another few notes, soft, full of longing. A familiarity about them pinged in Greg’s gut. It was a beautiful sound, nothing like the raucous calls of a seabird, and certainly no terrestrial animal possessed such a voice. 

It was unearthly. Inhuman.

A shiver sparked down his spine. Again, the humming became more of an open-mouthed call, resonant though gentle. It reminded him of warm arms and sweet, humid breath. Pearlescent skin that blushed like the inside of a seashell. 

“Mycroft,” he said.

“Sir?”

“My love,” Greg said. “My love is there! Do you hear it? He always sang like an angel!” Tears pooled in his eyes as the musical notes coaxed him to the rail. “I have him! The one that I promised all my life to!” 

He shoved off one boot and then the second. He was aware of other voices around him, the harsh, rough voices of human men. Nothing so melodious as his Mycroft.

“I’m coming! Mycroft! I hear you!”

As he tried to rip his tunic off, hands grabbed him, held him down. He was so close to the railing. How could they try to stop him!

“Do you hear it? He’s calling me! He’s calling me! Mycroft, I’m here! My beloved! Wait for me!” Hands wrenched him from his goal and he lashed out with an elbow, cracked against someone’s face. With only half the hands on him now, Lestrade bolted for the railing, his shirt half-torn as he launched himself over the side of the ship.

He slammed into the water below - his mind shaken as a sudden memory of the last time he fell into the water from a ship washed over him. This time, no warm arms reached to embrace him.

He surfaced, gasping for air. With no storm overhead, the waves were calm. Shouts came from his men above. He ignored them, whipping his head side to side as he tread water. Desperate to find his Mycroft, his heart splintering as he began to think - maybe it wasn’t him?

What if it were one of the real monsters of the deep?

That’s when the shouts above him became frantic. Panic washed over him as he turned to see what lurked behind him. Bone-white and terrifying, the sinister creature with eyes the color of pale smoke opened its maw to expose a row of dagger-sharp teeth. 

Lestrade cast his eyes to the firmament to utter a last-ditch prayer. Not for the ears of any god, but for those of his beloved. He said, “May he know that I wandered the oceans looking for him, and if he were here, my last words: I love you - I’ve loved you all my life.”

The dark of the water overcame him as pain scalded his sides in the form of talons and teeth. 


	4. and carries us with it

> Long afloat on shipless oceans
> 
> I did all my best to smile
> 
> 'Til your singing eyes and fingers
> 
> Drew me loving to your isle
> 
> And you sang
> 
> Sail to me
> 
> Sail to me
> 
> Let me enfold you
> 
> Here I am
> 
> Here I am
> 
> Waiting to hold you
> 
> Did I dream you dreamed about me?
> 
> Were you here when I was forced out
> 
> Now my foolish boat is leaning
> 
> Broken lovelorn on your rocks
> 
> For you sing, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow
> 
> Oh my heart, Oh my heart shies from the sorrow"
> 
> Well I'm as puzzled as the newborn child
> 
> I'm as riddled as the tide
> 
> Should I stand amid the breakers?
> 
> Or should I lie with death, my bride?
> 
> Hear me sing, "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you
> 
> Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you"
> 
> \- This Mortal Coil, _Song to a Siren_

Shadows and dappled light. Twisted tentacles and wet, slippery flesh. The stench of ichor and sweat, a fevered malaise, the pungent odor of impending doom and failure. His sides burned and his lungs struggled to capture air. 

And then, a dulcet whisper in his ear. Eyes the shade of cool slate in his dreams. 

Day by day, the task to live grew easier. The pain lessened. When he stared down into a pitch-black abyss, a soft, lilting tune, like a lullaby, beckoned him away and back into the light. A calming warmth, like the promise of sun-sweet fruit on a summer’s day. At the times when he wished he’d been dashed to pieces and rendt from his flesh, a siren’s call lifted him from the dregs of his despair, and gave him hope. Gave him respair.

When one day he awoke from the haze that had been his existence, he found himself inside a cool cave on a bed of soft, rich moss. Sunlight glowed at the mouth of the cave. And there, silhouetted against the light, sat the object of his life-long search. 

He blinked his eyes against what he was sure was a vision, but it didn’t falter. Instead, the vision came closer.

“Mycroft,” he said, his voice a thin, ragged whisper.

Darkness came again. 

* * *

Light crept across the slate of his consciousness. Greg opened his eyes. Blinked. For a moment, he thought he was back on the _Emma_ , due the slight rocking motion of his head. The fresh earth smell told him otherwise. 

A rough stone ceiling hung over him. His body had been covered with a torn-edged, canvas sail. The cave was warm and dry, and he lay on a bed of soft moss - nude. He pushed the sail down as he struggled to get up on his elbows.

“Take care,” a voice said to his right. A mellifluous voice hadn’t heard in years, except in fuzzy memories and fuzzier dreams. 

Greg turned his head to see him - Mycroft. 

Time had changed him. Frown lines appeared around his mouth and across his forehead, yet he was still lovely, breath-taking. Eyes like sea glass and hair like flames on tinder. A smooth chest as white as sea foam. Muscles corded over bone and connected with sinew. 

“Mycroft,” he said. His voice was rough from disuse. He rolled to his side and reached toward him.

Mycroft said nothing as he looked at his outstretched hand. His eyes seemed transfixed. Greg looked down.

The wedding band glinted. Greg almost forgot what it meant, but now here, with Mycroft’s eyes upon it, he remembered Amelia.

“You must be hungry,” Mycroft said and in a fluid movement, stood, bowing beneath the low ceiling. 

“Wait,” Greg said.

Mycroft didn’t answer as he walked out. 

Greg stared down at the ring. With a grunt, he pulled it from his finger and whipped it to the back of the cave where the shadows might obscure it from the sun’s light forever.

* * *

“What happened?” he asked. “I saw...what was it I saw?”

“It’s my fault,” Mycroft said. He was peeling and dividing an orange fruit into segments. Greg watched the juice trickle down Mycroft’s thumb. “It wasn’t my intention to attract the beast. Just know you’re safe now.”

“Did you...did you kill it?”

Mycroft paused. He looked at Greg. “What do you remember?”

“I…” Greg looked to the maw of the cave. “A terrible scream.”

Mycroft said nothing, only went back to dividing the fruit. His brow furrowed in concentration, his mouth a thin line. Greg wished to see him smile. It seemed it would not be the happy reunion he envisioned. 

“I can’t believe you fought the beast.”

“He did turn out to be rather tasty, didn’t he?” And that knowing smile, the storm cloud color of his eyes, hit Greg with nostalgia - their youth together, when everything Mycroft did seemed fascinating and magical. His sardonic smirks and euphonic speech had made Greg tongue tied at times back then, but no longer, not now that he was a man grown, and had traveled all this way besides. 

With a heaviness in his chest, he said, “I dreamed about you, you know.” 

Mycroft started to get up, but Greg snatched his hand out to grab his arm. “Eat with me.”

“You know I don’t eat fruit,” Mycroft said with his eyes averted.

“Please. Sit with me awhile.”

Mycroft settled back on the ground. “If you wish.”

“I have wished to see you again ever since that day.” Greg slid his hand down to Mycroft’s, and interlaced their fingers.

“Please, let us not speak of old times. We are grown. It happened a long time ago.”

* * *

Greg dug his toes into the warm sand as he leaned back on his elbows. The island was a small paradise. Fruit trees and fish were plentiful. His days were spent lounging on the sand or on the soft, velvety moss. He tipped his head up to the sun as he basked in what he saw as his tremendous fortune. 

The sand bar he lied upon was amongst his favourite places to linger. The vast ocean to the horizon settled him, rather than filling him with the acute longing for adventure as it had done in his youth. With his injuries healed, though, he’d begun thinking of finding out more about the other side of the island.

The water beside him rippled as a dark shadow appeared beneath. The little fish that swam about the shallows had disappeared. As Mycroft emerged from the water, his skin and hair glistened in the sunlight like some forgotten water god of old. Wine-dark hair cascaded to his waist where the silvery scales gilded in gold began. His lower body morphed into his human form as he arose from the saltwater. Nude as the first day Greg laid eyes upon him, when they were but small playmates, both in love with the sea and the sand. 

Except this time, Greg was also nude. 

Mycroft stretched out on the sand beside him. Grains of sand stuck to his wet skin but he never seemed to mind. His mercury silver eyes scanned the pink scars on Greg’s sides. “You’re healing well,” he said, his voice still owning a musical quality that was pleasant to Greg’s ears. “You will be able to travel again.” His eyes avoided Greg’s. “Return to your ship. See the people you love.”

Greg thought for a moment of Therault, and an ache formed in his gut. More than a first mate, a best friend, or perhaps the father figure he'd wished for. Therault was practical; he would take good care of the men. For now, Greg had found his treasure, and was determined to keep it. 

Aside from hand-holding, Mycroft had not been receptive to any of Greg’s overtures of affection. They’d spoken of nothing else but the island and the ocean and the weather. No reminiscences of their boyhood days. No explanation of why Greg had gone away without a word. 

It was time for Greg to make himself plain. 

He reached over and linked his fingers with Mycroft’s. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Mycroft looked toward the ocean as his eyes narrowed. “You have always been a sailor. You have always belonged to the sea.”

“I belong to you,” Greg said. “I went to university and instead of pursuing business, I became a sailor because I was looking for you.”

Mycroft’s gaze snapped to him. “You’ve never said.”

“You haven’t given me the opportunity.” Greg traced his knuckles with a finger. “You speak of healing me for travel, you avoid my kisses and any other offer of affection aside from this,” he glanced down to their hands, “and you move away when I begin to speak of anything other than food or the weather.”

Mycroft’s eyes didn’t stray from their hands, as if he were etching an indelible impression of them in his mind. “You were married.”

“I was. It - it didn’t mean anything.”

Mycroft tilted his head in question.

“My parents…” Greg remembered the hot shame of it all. His parents speaking to him as if he’d committed a great crime against them, when the love between two people of the same sex was nothing to be bitter about, and in many places he’d travelled had hardly warranted a second look. “Someone saw us at the beach.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed, like slits of starlight. “I would have known. Unless it were magic.” He stiffened. “Oh, but perhaps…I was distracted...”

Greg gave a lift of one shoulder. “I know not how. I only know that it angered my father, and I was sent away immediately. I went to university in the mountains and there didn’t seem to be a way to reach you. It - I was miserable. Without you, without the water - it was hell. I did well in my studies, though. I...threw myself into my studies and I avoided most other people. It was...lonely.” He kissed Mycroft’s knuckles, and a flicker of hope arose in him when Mycroft did nothing to prevent it. “My parents were choosing a bride for me. I avoided going home by joining the Royal Navy. It...became ridiculous. I had to go home eventually. So, I chose a bride for myself. Amelia. She - she was a farm girl. It utterly scandalised my family and their friends to have chosen someone considered too lowly of birth. I quite enjoyed the uproar.”

Mycroft stroked one long finger across one of Greg’s knuckles, as if he couldn’t prevent himself. He avoided looking at Greg when he asked, “Did you love her?”

“No. It was a marriage of convenience. She wished to better her station. I wished to upset my family. I believe we suited each other, for my heart belonged to another and her heart belonged to her ambition.”

“A-another?”

“You.”

Mycroft’s eyes glistened as they swept back to Greg’s. “Truly?”

“I have rid myself of any human trappings in order to be here on this island with you.”

“You threw yourself into danger’s way - _once again_ \- and I had to save you - _again._ ”

“Had I known that that would be what it would take to have you in my life again, I would have thrown myself at a sea serpent years ago.”

“Scoundrel.” Mycroft’s lips twitched and he looked away again.

“How did you know?” Greg asked.

Mycroft squeezed his hand. “I know where my heart lies, at all times.”

“Were you following me?”

Mycroft lowered his head. “I called the storm that brought you here. Your ship was getting too close to my people, and they do not look kindly upon intruders. Unfortunately, my magic called the attention of one of the Old Ones. It nearly killed you.”

Greg cupped Mycroft’s chin. “And then you healed me.”

Mycroft’s lips trembled. He pulled away from Greg. “Won’t you grow bored here, anchored to this island with only me for company?”

“What about your people? Your ways?” Greg licked his lips. “Did you have a partner?”

Mycroft looked away. “No. My people rely on me for their safety. I am not...liked among them, but I have a role nonetheless. They’ll not bother you since they know you to be mine. Your men were in trouble, however.They’re safe now. As are my people.”

Greg asked the question that caused fear to hammer in his heart. “Do you need to go back to them?” 

“I have eyes on them always. I have never needed to stay with them, though I stay close. I have wandered further than they ever dreamed.”

Greg leaned back on the sand and let the horizon draw his eyes. “When we were young, you told me of faraway, magical places you’d seen. I-I want to see those places, with you.” He turned back on his side toward Mycroft, and slid his hand to Mycroft’s cheek and gently brought him face to face. “I have travelled all this time and all this way to find you. Won’t you keep me now that I have proven myself yours?”

Mycroft lowered his gaze again. “I have longed for you all these years. It seems impossible to think you’ve done the same for me.”

Greg’s heart thumped. “The men, when they thought I wasn’t near to hear, called you my albatross.”

“Your albatross?”

“They saw you as my burden, my ruin.” He traced a finger over the fine contours of Mycroft’s face, marveling that he could press his fingers against it once more. “But the albatross was never around my neck. It was safe, in my heart, the symbol of the gods’ goodness and their marvelous creation.”

Mycroft’s lips twitched. “You have grown to obtain quite the poet’s heart.”

“It is your heart, if you will have it.” Greg cupped Mycroft’s cheek and stared into his eyes. “Tell me you will have it, give me the word, and I am yours, forever.”

Mycroft, the creature of two worlds, took Greg’s hand from his face and kissed the inside of his wrist. “For mine, always. Be prepared, Gregory Lestrade, for I will never let you go now.”

“Never let me go,” Greg whispered. 

Like the joining of sea to shore, they leaned toward one another and pressed their lips together, the brine a flavour to savour as they sealed their promises in a long and tender kiss. When they parted, it gladdened Greg to see Mycroft’s happiest smile, with a row of pointed teeth gleaming in the sun.

* * *

_6 years later_

Therault stared at the map. It'd become a habit, when they were in this part of the ocean, to remember the storm that began that day, the uncanny tempest that dropped them where Captain Lestrade met his death. He'd no way of knowing how to get back to the islands, for as much as they'd tried to map it by stars, it was as if the night sky played tricks on them, never allowing the ship to find that mysterious place again.

It wasn't good for him to dwell on these things, he knew. Yet, the recollection of Lestrade, and his mad-happy eyes that shone bright as an oil slick across the water, crossed his mind again and again whenever the ship passed through here. 

A knock came at the door. "Captain?" 

Therault frowned. His promotion from lieutenant had surprised him - he'd never had the wealthy family or prestigious name to ensure his rising through the officers' ranks, but it seemed Lestrade had smoothed the way before his untimely loss. 

"Come in," he said. 

"A message for you." It was Perron, his voice hushed and uncertain. Usually Therault's heart beat quickened in the younger man's presence, but the grave look upon Perron's face gave him cause to worry.

"A message?"

"It...appeared on the deck." Perron's hand shook as he placed a green glass bottle on Therault's desk among the half-curled maps. 

"Did you open it?" Therault asked, as his ribs seemed to close in tight about his organs.

"Nay." Perron's cheeks coloured.

"Who left it there?"

"No one will own up to it. It has your name on it." He turned the bottle, where Therault could see the script - _Captain Therault_ \- in a handwriting he hadn't seen in six years.

Perron watched him. "It's his handwriting, isn't it?"

Therault's heart seized. "Close the door." 

Perron dashed to the door and shut it. He stepped close to Therault's desk, stealthily, as if the bottle might grow feet and throw itself at them.

Which, seemed not beyond its capability. 

Therault reached to the bottle. The glass itself held no trace of magic, it seemed. Simply a bottle. He uncorked the top and let the letter slide out onto his desk. When it didn't move, he picked it up, brushed his fingers over the writing. Lestrade had held this paper. Had written this note. Knew Therault was the captain now. 

_How?_ It was almost too much to bear. He was half tempted to throw the letter out the porthole. 

One look at Perron, and he knew this to be impossible. He'd taken him under his wing, as if the sailor filled the hole left behind from his very dear friend, Greg Lestrade. Over the years, Perron had come to mean a great deal more. He was a good man, devoted to Therault, and careful to keep his secrets. Perron now stared at the letter. Waited for Therault, as he always would.

 _Have courage._ Therault lifted the paper, and unrolled it. A bit of sand fell onto his desk.

_Dear Captain,_

_I am well. I am happy. I am with him._ _  
It's not all monsters out there in the unknown._

_Warmest Regards,_ _  
Gregory A. Lestrade_

"Captain?" Perron's voice interrupted his reverie.

Therault reached out and grabbed the young man's hand. Tears, a salt water of another kind, trickled down his cheeks.

"Perron, another lesson," he said with a thickness in his throat. "It's not all monsters out there in the unknown."

He looked to the porthole to see the blue of the sea extend into the horizon, and remembered once more, a young man with hair like silver, who told him of a strange red-headed boy, and thanked the gods that Lestrade had found his treasure at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Thank you again to hippocrates460, who wrung more words out of me than what these chapters had orginally. 
> 
> The titles for these chapters were taken from _Le Lac_ by Alphonse de LaMartine, who wrote the poem about a lost lover. 
> 
> I've written a companion piece to _A Song for a Siren_ , called _[An Olde Magic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463573)_. If you'd like to read about Greg and Mycroft's first sexy time together and don't mind tentacles, then it's the add-on for you. ;-)
> 
> Please check out the other stories in the #MystradeIsMagic collection! We are so lucky to have so many talented writers in our little fandom. <3


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